At a hearing on Wednesday, officials with the Washington State Department of Health said that soon after the law legalizing same sex marriages goes into effect on Dec. 6, marriage certificates would begin using the terms “Spouse A” and “Spouse B” instead of bride and groom.

“This is a sea change,” Johnson told Fox News host Steve Doocy on Thursday. “This is a big anthropological change. This will change society in Washington and other states forever.”

“The issue becomes, in terms of gender neutrality, in terms of saying ‘I’m a spouse, I’m not a husband or wife, I’m not a bride or groom, I’m someone about to be married’ — where does it go?” the legal analyst asked. “Do we no longer say father and mother? Do we only say parent? Do we no longer say brother and sister? Do we say sibling? Do we no longer say widow or widower? What does it mean in terms of our relationships and how we view each other, people who choose to be engaged in heterosexual marriage?”

“So you think what is happening in Washington state with this proposal is going to wind up rippling across the fabric if America?” Doocy wondered.

“It will!” Johnson warned. “And it’s not about gay marriage, it’s about what will happen to heterosexual marriage and how those partners are defined and how those relationships go forward in our society.”

“It’s going to have a tremendous, tremendous impact,” he added. “Watch this, see what happens. This is going to be a big, big, sea change in our society and how the smallest of our children understand relationships between parents, between husband and wife, between mother and father.”

About the Author

David Edwards has served as an editor at Raw Story since 2006. His work can also be found at Crooks & Liars, and he's also been published at The BRAD BLOG. He came to Raw Story after working as a network manager for the state of North Carolina and as as engineer developing enterprise resource planning software. Follow him on Twitter at @DavidEdwards.